Responsive Reading: Isaiah 60 : 1, 2  •  Isaiah 35 : 3-7, 10

1.     Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

2.     For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

3.     Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

4.     Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

5.     Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

6.     Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

7.     And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.

10.     And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

1. I Chronicles 29 : 11

11     Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.

2. Psalm 33 : 18, 19

18     Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;

19     To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.

3. Psalm 34 : 7, 15, 17-20, 22

7     The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

15     The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.

17     The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.

18     The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

19     Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.

20     He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken.

22     The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.

4. John 5 : 2, 3, 5-9 (to :)

2     Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.

3     In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.

5     And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.

6     When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?

7     The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

8     Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.

9     And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked:

5. John 9 : 1-7

1     And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

2     And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

3     Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

4     I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

5     As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

6     When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,

7     And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

6. Mark 5 : 21-23, 35-42

21     And when Jesus was passed over again by ship unto the other side, much people gathered unto him: and he was nigh unto the sea.

22     And, behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet,

23     And besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.

35     While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?

36     As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.

37     And he suffered no man to follow him, save Peter, and James, and John the brother of James.

38     And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly.

39     And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.

40     And they laughed him to scorn. But when he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying.

41     And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.

42     And straightway the damsel arose, and walked; for she was of the age of twelve years. And they were astonished with a great astonishment.

7. Revelation 21 : 1, 3, 4

1     And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

3     And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4     And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

1. 339 : 7 (Since)-10

Since God is All, there is no room for His unlikeness. God, Spirit, alone created all, and called it good. Therefore evil, being contrary to good, is unreal, and cannot be the product of God.

2. 335 : 27-29

Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable, immortal, divine, eternal. Nothing unspiritual can be real, harmonious, or eternal.

3. 472 : 24 (All)-3

All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God. We learn in Christian Science that all inharmony of mortal mind or body is illusion, possessing neither reality nor identity though seeming to be real and identical.

4. 473 : 7-12, 26-3

The God-principle is omnipresent and omnipotent. God is everywhere, and nothing apart from Him is present or has power. Christ is the ideal Truth, that comes to heal sickness and sin through Christian Science, and attributes all power to God.

Jesus established what he said by demonstration, thus making his acts of higher importance than his words. He proved what he taught. This is the Science of Christianity. Jesus proved the Principle, which heals the sick and casts out error, to be divine. Few, however, except his students understood in the least his teachings and their glorious proofs, — namely, that Life, Truth, and Love (the Principle of this unacknowledged Science) destroy all error, evil, disease, and death.

5. 288 : 31-6

The eternal Truth destroys what mortals seem to have learned from error, and man's real existence as a child of God comes to light. Truth demonstrated is eternal life. Mortal man can never rise from the temporal débris of error, belief in sin, sickness, and death, until he learns that God is the only Life. The belief that life and sensation are in the body should be overcome by the understanding of what constitutes man as the image of God.

6. 259 : 6 (In)-14

In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow, — thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration.

7. 229 : 15-10

By universal consent, mortal belief has constituted itself a law to bind mortals to sickness, sin, and death. This customary belief is misnamed material law, and the individual who upholds it is mistaken in theory and in practice. The so-called law of mortal mind, conjectural and speculative, is made void by the law of immortal Mind, and false law should be trampled under foot.

If God causes man to be sick, sickness must be good, and its opposite, health, must be evil, for all that He makes is good and will stand forever. If the transgression of God's law produces sickness, it is right to be sick; and we cannot if we would, and should not if we could, annul the decrees of wisdom. It is the transgression of a belief of mortal mind, not of a law of matter nor of divine Mind, which causes the belief of sickness. The remedy is Truth, not matter, — the truth that disease is unreal.

If sickness is real, it belongs to immortality; if true, it is a part of Truth. Would you attempt with drugs, or without, to destroy a quality or condition of Truth? But if sickness and sin are illusions, the awakening from this mortal dream, or illusion, will bring us into health, holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the forever coming of Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the sick. This is the salvation which comes through God, the divine Principle, Love, as demonstrated by Jesus.

8. 476 : 32-5

Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.

9. 171 : 12-16

Mind's control over the universe, including man, is no longer an open question, but is demonstrable Science. Jesus illustrated the divine Principle and the power of immortal Mind by healing sickness and sin and destroying the foundations of death.

10. 393 : 8-15, 32-4

Mind is the master of the corporeal senses, and can conquer sickness, sin, and death. Exercise this God-given authority. Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action. Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man.

It is well to be calm in sickness; to be hopeful is still better; but to understand that sickness is not real and that Truth can destroy its seeming reality, is best of all, for this understanding is the universal and perfect remedy.

11. 495 : 14-24

When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.